Results of Study on Pesticide Encourage Effort to Cut Use

By PHILIP J. HILTS,

Published: July 5, 1993

WASHINGTON, July 4—
With the release last week of a five-year study of agricultural chemicals and how they affect children, it appears that there is momentum for a major change in Federal policy on pesticides.

Just before the release of the report, from the National Academy of Sciences, came the announcement by three Federal agencies, which in the past had often clashed on the subject, that they would now work together to try to reduce the use of pesticides. That, in turn, came a few months after the Supreme Court strictly interpreted a law on food additives, forcing Congress to act on pesticide policy.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and head of the Agriculture Committee, said a few days ago that "the whole atmosphere is worlds different than when I requested the report" five years ago. "It comes at a time when we may actually be able to enact some of the changes suggested." Regulating Pesticides

The study released last week detailed how the Government should regulate pesticides. It also faulted the Government's method of calculating the level of pesticides on food that is safe. And it found that other sources of pesticide contamination -- for instance, chemicals used on lawns -- have not been considered when total pesticide exposure is calculated.

The study found that infants and young children might be uniquely sensitive to pesticides on food. They consume more than 60 times the amount of fruits as adults for their body weight, and so tend to get higher doses of the pesticides used on fruits early in life.

Senator Leahy said the Clinton Administration was ready to reverse the policy of recent decades and try to reduce the amount of pesticides used by American farmers whenever possible. Alternative ways to control pests, like using beneficial insects to control them or enriching the soil to makes plants more resistant to pests, may become Federal policy. In a Year, Perhaps a Law

Because of the President's support, the Senator said, Congress might pass a bill within the next year or so, something he and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, have tried to do without success for several years. With the threat of a Presidential veto gone, he said, lawmakers "will be willing to negotiate."

The report said the three Federal agencies that control the amount of pesticides that is permitted on food -- the Agriculture Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration -- had outmoded policies that make it possible for children to get the same pesticide from several different sources and end up eating amounts of it that are unsafe.

The Government now considers the amount of a pesticide "average persons" might ingest. William Jordan, deputy director of policy for the E.P.A. Pesticide Office, said the agency had looked at the diets of several groups, classified by age, race or geography.

But the academy said that computer data now made it possible to do things like look at children's pesticide consumption in their first five years.

The report also said that each new pesticide was tested before it is approved by the Government for use in foods. But these risk calculations have not taken into account the fact that people may get pesticides from many sources besides food, like contaminated drinking water or golf courses treated with chemicals.

Thus, said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the committee that wrote the pesticide report, "Pesticides applied in legal amounts on the farm, and present in legal amounts on food, can still lead to unsafe amounts."

Both Government and industry had years ago allowed some products on the market if they had what was called "negligible" amounts of carcinogens. That could mean, for example, that a person would not run a risk of cancer higher than one in a million over an entire lifetime. Ending the Risk

Two bills in Congress, one offered by Democrats and one by Republicans, have one thing in common, something industry has sought for years. Both bills would require the E.P.A. to calculate risks and permit pesticides and other additives on the market if they pose only a "negligible risk."

In the Democratic offering, the Kennedy-Waxman bill, an acceptable "negligible risk" would cover a pesticide that would cause a person no more than a one in a million chance of suffering a harmful effect over the course of a lifetime. Thus, a trace amount of a carcinogen might not force a chemical off the market.

The two bills differ in that the Republican bill asks the E.P.A. to weigh the economic benefit of having a pesticide on the market against its health risks.